APPALLING CS, OVERCHARGING, BEING CALLED LIARS

on ‎26-09-201720:16

My wife is crying. We have just been on the phone for over an hour to try to find out how Virgin have bent the laws of Mathematics to suit their purposes... We have had one CS representative spout the manual at as without listening to what was being said, before we finally asked to speak to a manager... transferring you now = ring ring.... 15 more minutes of waiting. I even phoned on another phone because we were concerned we had been placed in LIMBO and 5 mins into that phone call the CS representative hung up on us. BTW Neither I or my wife are rude people on the phone, we understand that it is just people doing their jobs and we treat people with respect... 1.06 hours into the call and after 20mins speaking to the manager the call ended abruptly whilst my wife was still speaking and nobody tried to contact us again. (if only there was a way that Virgin Mobile could find out the number of the person who was speaking to them about their account and phone them back?)

The issue we have is over use of data... The accounting period is for a month and we have used 3.18GB data. (OK we have accept that the data has been used) however we have never used anywhere near that amount before. We have a 1GB allowance + 1GB Promo per month = 2GB + whatever is rolled over from the previous month (This is BASIC Maths Virgin).

We also have a text from VirginMedia on the date that our allowance was renewed saying that we have rollover data (see attached image). The manager that we spoke to suggested that it was not a legitimate text and that we had no rollover for that month. Dear Virgin Media you must have been hacked by a devious master criminal who is sending out texts to your customers misinforming them so that they they go over their data limits and make you money... NO WAIT...!?

We have a billsaying that shows we were charged for 2GB = £39 (notice the bit in bold Virgin and not for 1.18 - the unspecified amount of rollover)

The CSs agreed that the maths was correct... but everytime we mentioned that we were charged for 2GB as the bill shows they would not acknowledge it.

We have previously received texts warning of approaching data limits 75% and 95% the last of which was January last year.

We have spoken to 2 virgin representatives who confirm that Virgin send out these texts and that we should have received them. WE DID NOT.

Prior to this bill, we have NOT received any texts from Virgin.

My wife phoned up and spent some time questioning this and as a show of faith received a £15.00 refund, which is big of Virgin seeing as though we spend over £1000 a year and have done so for some years.

When I got home and we talked about we felt that hang on this is not right.

We looked at the bil and discovered that we had been charged £3.00 for each time we had connected to Mobile Data once we were over the data allowance. Apparently this will happen if your phone disconnects and reconnects due to a poor mobile data signal... WHO COULD BENEFIT FROM THAT THEN VIRGIN? Interestingly according to the bill this was happening early in the morningsat a times when my wife was asleep in a house that has a Virgin Superhub approximately 4m from the phone. Virgin mobile said that Virgin Broadband is nothing to do with them and they advise that you turn off your mobile data when you are in your house and have WIFI available.

To summarise.

1: We have text messages showing a rollover (We were called liars) in this accounting period of 9th Aug to 9th Sept.

2:The maths does not make sense. Even without rollover there are 2GB of inclusive data therefore we have only gone over by 1.18GB and should have only been charged for that. NOT the 2GB that the bill shows.

3:Virgin did not send any warning texts when i was approaching my limit, both of your customer service representatives told me that i should have recieved three of them but there are none, i had no reason to believe i would be approaching my limit when i never had in the last 6 months besides which i would get a txt from you when i was approaching my limit right?

4. Your Manager 'Alan' M7802746 basically called my wife a liar, saying there was no such txt about data rollover, wouldn't listen to what she was saying and could not explain how we were charged for 2gb and then hung up on her whilst she was asking him to go through the bill together then made no effort to call back.

5. when sent a txt asking how we felt about your customer service which said feedback was free when we obviously were trying to say we were unhappy we were then told we would be charged for this!!!!!!!!!!!!

txt saying feedback is freewe will charge you for negative feedbacktext showing data rolloverbill showing 2GB at £39txt showing data rollover on the 9th Augustbill showing charges for 2gb of data use at £39

Re: APPALLING CS, OVERCHARGING, BEING CALLED LIARS

on ‎27-09-201717:19

I was charged £180 for data charges. I have been told by Virgin Mobile I should always have the mobile data turned off as the phone will use data rather than wifi, even if it is available. I never use the data now and have it turned off all the time. I too have Virgin Media for broadband.

I was previously with Tesco Mobile and never had to turn my mobile data off, my phone always used wifi when available. I wish I'd never changed to Virgin, I feel I have been robbed.

Re: APPALLING CS, OVERCHARGING, BEING CALLED LIARS

on ‎27-09-201718:22

Report them - see details below

Some time back my wife and I were BOTH unable to contact emergency services... We passed a significant amount of debris on a 70mph dual carriageway and I tried to call 999 only to find out that calls were blocked on my phone, I tried my wife's phone and had the same thing. We contacted Virgin who denied that this was possible and it is only because I am very tenacious and managed to find a tech guy with a conscience somewhere in the Virgin workforce who explained what could have happened, details I can't remember something to do with being inbetween masts and resets or similar.

On trying to follow this up though Virgin played the "We are a massive multi-million pound company who honestly are impervious to anything you can do card".

The more people who challenge them though and report them to the powers who have "some influence over them" the better...

Re: APPALLING CS, OVERCHARGING, BEING CALLED LIARS

on ‎28-09-201708:12

Hi cyberken,

In order to help further with the issues you have posted about, I will need to verify the requested information in my previous PM.

If you prefer to not provide this information, please contact us direct, please give us a call on 789 (Freephone from a Virgin Mobile), 150 (Freephone from a Virgin Mobile or Virgin Media landline) or 0345 6000 789 (from any other phone).

Re: APPALLING CS, OVERCHARGING, BEING CALLED LIARS

on ‎28-09-201716:31

Cyberken, I can see how they've calculated your bill.

In the month (let's say it was a 30 day month) you've had 2gb allowance plus the unspecified roll over amount available. You've obviously used this up in the first 17 days....In the next 13 days you've gone on to use more, up to a total of 3.18gb.

They don't charge you for 3.18gb - 2gb - unspecified rollover amount (i.e. less than 1.18gb that you used), they charge you a flat fee of £3 for the 13 days = £39.

Even if you only use the smallest amount of data possible they still charge you £3. (and I suspect even if you use none they still claim you did, and that's £3). This happened to me a few years back. My phone never left the house for several days where it was connected to wifi, but they still charged for those days. (They claimed the wifi may have blipped for a second or two, which is enough for the mobile data to kick in - this was often at 4.00am when I was asleep and couldn't be using the phone). Back then the excess charge for exceeding your allowance was just £1 a day so it wasn't bad....but they sneaked it up to £2 last year....and up to £3 this year (robbery).

This year I had another problem. I only ever go over my allowance when I'm on holiday and away from the home wifi. My holiday spanned the billing period.

Coming towards the end of my billing period I had hit my limit. Virgin sent a text saying I had hit my limit. They included a link to buy a bolt-on 1GB of data for £10. As I had 5 days of the month remaining they would have charged me 5 x £3 = £15, so I bought the bolt-on....happy days.

In the last days of my holiday I used more data from the next billing period. But about 7 days in I returned home, and was back on wifi. However when my bill came, Virgin said I had used up all my allowance in the first 7 days, they proceeded to charge me £3 for the remaining 23 days!! (even though I had hardly used anything in those 23 days combined.

I complained, asking why I hadn't got a text like the previous month offering a £10 1GB bolt-on? That would have covered everything and been a sight cheaper than 23 x £3 = £69!!!

They talked a load of gibberish and eventually refunded half of the £69 excess. Still robbery though.

I suggest you complain about your £39 excess charge....maybe you'll at least get half back?

Re: APPALLING CS, OVERCHARGING, BEING CALLED LIARS

on ‎28-09-201716:55

Hi cyberken,

I'd appreciate if you let me know how you get on, well done to ggoodwin who got at least half of his charge refunded, I only managed to get £15, a drop in the ocean from £180. I'm appalled by the whole situation and can't believe they have taken so much money from me.

ggoodwin, I couldn't understand why my bill was showing so much usage at night, it appears I never sleep according to my bill, so I assume my wifi was going off at night too and the phone was kicking in to data even though it wasn't being used. This makes the situation even worse in my opinion as it means I am paying Virgin Media twice, once for the mobile data and again for the wifi. Makes you wonder if its accidental, when they can rake money in that easily.

Re: APPALLING CS, OVERCHARGING, BEING CALLED LIARS

on ‎30-09-201711:07

Interesting that the same thing happened to us... Virgin equipment "failing"/disconnecting in the middle of the night causing other other equipment linked to Virgin to connect to the internet... (briefly) which incurs a charge!!! Mind you as Virgin mobile keep denying (hahaha) that they are anything to do with Virgin Media even though you can get all of their services set up in the same shop...!?!?!?!?

If we were of a suspicious nature it would almost seem as though someone wrote a program that goes something like

IF Customer A data usage >= Customer A data allowance AND Customer A has WIFI Superhub

Then Disconnect WIFI service between 02:00 - 06:00 for 1 second

Charge Customer A £3.00

Repeat until Customer A refresh date OR until Customer A notices and complains to the Offcom

....I wonder how many other Virgin customers have been charged the same way and not noticed or figured it was a one off on them?

Thinking that something like Microsoft forms could be used to gather complaints for CISAS